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tv   NOW With Alex Wagner  MSNBC  April 30, 2013 9:00am-10:01am PDT

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in the last hour, in the second press conference of his second term, president obama addressed the crisis in syria. an issue that has escalated since the administration went public last week with evidence that chemical weapons are being used. >> what's happening in syria is a blemish on the international community generally. we already are deeply engaged in trying to bring about a solution in syria. it is a difficult problem. but even if chemical weapons were not being used in syria, we'd still be thinking about tens of thousands of people, innocent civilians. women, children, who have been killed by a regime that's more concerned about staying in power than it is about the well-being of its people. so we are alread invested in trying to find a solution here. >> what that solution is, however, remains highly unclear.
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during the press conference, president obama said it would be quote a game-changer if chemical weapons were used in syria. when asked to clarify what exactly a game-change would mean, the president provided little clarity. >> do you mean u.s. military action? >> by game changer i mean that we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us. >> and if the president is rethinking the range of options he's going to do so with great caution. >> if we end up rushing to judgment without hard, effective evidence, they we can find ourselves in a position where we can't mobilize the international community to support what we do. there may be objections, even among some people in the region who are sympathetic with the opposition. if we take action. so it's important for us to do this in a prudent way. >> for this white house, caution is the order of the day.
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the president echoed what other members of his administration have been saying for days. >> we are continuing to assess what happened when, where, i think we should wait to get the facts. before we make any judgments on what action, if any, should be taken and what kind of action. >> it's very important that we take the information that's been gathered thus far and build upon it. because an assessment of varying degrees of confidence is not sufficient to upon which to base a policy reaction. >> but as members of the administration continue to gather facts and weigh options, the international community appears to be weighing its own response. yesterday, yuxt secretary-general, ban ki-moon renewed his request to have experts investigate chemical weapons. despite the range of responses around the globe, the facts on the ground remain clear -- syria
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is burning and chemical weapons are not the country is reeling, the daily death toll stands between 100 and 200. the total death toll now stands at more than 70,000 people. just this morning, there was another explosion in damascus that killed at least 13. with a staggering death toll it has become harder to steer away from comparisons to bosnia, kosovo and other humanitariancr. former state department official anne marie slaughter said president obama should remember rwanda as he weighs his actions in sirria red line or not, slaughter says that the white house should recognize that the game has already changed. >> he should understand the deep and lasting damage done when those who wield power are exposed as not saying what they mean or meaning what they say. the distrust, cynicism and hatred with which the united states is regarded in much of the world is already a cancer. standing by as assad gases his
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people will guarantee that he will be remembered. joining me today, the host of "up" with steve kornacki on msnbc. former assistant secretary of state, under president clinton, jamey reuben. rmer national security council spokesman tommy vitor and former national press secretary for the obama campaign, ben leebolt and nbc political director, chuck todd. you said and i thought very importantly an astute observation, the white house did not want to have to deal with syria. they did not want to have to deal with the red line. they now obviously have to deal with it. what did you make of the sort of tango that the president was doing in front othe press corps as far as what happens now? >> i think he's sending the same message he's been sending for the last week with the administration -- there's no interest in doing something. they don't want to have to intervene. this is not a rush to military
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intervention this is not a march to war. and i think the most important nuance in his answer, it was a nuance, when you say he didn't offer a lot of clarity, that's fair. but by not offering the clarity, he sort of gave a hint at where they're leaning, which is he has a range of options. when they finish determining the chain of custody on chemical weapons, how they intervene is going to be very careful here. i think they're hoping for a real international coalition. they're hoping, they, the idea of the u.n. being helpful here is probably unlikely because of the russians. but do the russians quietly change their tune and then by not getting involved and if the arab league gets involved, that's what they're hoping happens here. and they're trying in some ways to make that happen. but i think he was sending the message -- this isn't going to happen any time soon. and when we do something, it may not be as large of an intervention even that libya was when you look at it in
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hindsight. >> jamie, the president underscored repeatedly that even red lines aside, the u.s. very engaged and remains deeply engaged on syria and will remain deeply engaged on syria. we are the largest donor, the u.s. is, of humanitarian ao syre just doubled our nonlethal aid to the opposition forces, $250 million. in terms of tangibly changing the ground game in terms of actually helping one way or another, what does that do? >> i don't think the humanitarian aid or the nonlethal assistance plays much of a role at all. it's obviously very beneficial for the people who are receiving it. who get aid. but in terms of changing the calculation of, of assad as john kerry, the secretary of state keeps talking about, night vision goggles and aid to the refugees is almost nothing, really in terms of changing the calculation. for assad's calculation to
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change, as secretary kerry, eeps talking about, he has to believet something fundamental is going to change in the military struggle. he has to believe that the united states is going to really take the side of the opposition. whether that comes in the form of actual weapons, training, intelligence, no fly zone or possible safe area in parts of syria, this leader is only going to change his calculation if he thinks the united states and the western world and perhaps arab countries, are going to actually intervene to effect the military balance and we have not done that yet. we've operated on the sidelines. clearly the administration has been concerned about escalation. worried about the russians. worried about all sorts of things. but the things they've worried about have all come about because we haven't intervened. we would have been a much easier
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time to convince the syrian military to take action against assad, had we intervened a year and a half ago. if they knew look, it's up, they're going to lose, it's just a question of when. i think this would have been much easier. now it's much, much more difficult. because of the presence of jihadist groups on the ground, the confusion over who is the leading player on the ground. these all make it much more difficult. but of course, the pressure to intervene is now much greater. what it shows you when you impose these red lines, and despite everything we've heard today, in international diplomacy, a red line is a use of force. when you say serious consequences -- that means the use of military power. >> and chuck, to the question of red lines, a lot of talk from the right about red line scrutiny, of what the president is doing before and after has come from the right in terms of conservatives, john mccain, is his performance today going to
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placate the hue and cry from the right? >> i'm surprised the most important develop today as far as the american public is concerned about syria, which a new cbs poll show as large majority don't want intervention and how the president, if he makes the decision to intervene in some form or another, i think you're going to have a very skeptical american public. jamie is making the case that if he had intervened sooner it would have been easier, now it's more complicated, because you have more unfriendlies if you will on the anti assad side. if you break syria, there's only one country going to be held responsible for fixing syria. it's not turkey, great britain, the soviets, the russians, it's the united states and i think that has to play a calculus here. you get in, the u.s. will own this, own the rebuilding, own the potential new government, and in a sense is that something that's going to you know, is that something that is, going to be politically palatable in this
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country? and is congress going to give them the ability to do it? >> chuck, you're absolutely right that that's the logic of the reluctance to intervene. but there is no reason why the united states has to own this problem. we can make decisions to assist the rebels, we can make decisions with our allies. to support the opposition, without owning the problem. we didn't own the problem in many other countries where we've contributed military power. that's a decision that the president has to make when he intervenes, he has to, if he were to do this, has to make the case that yes, we're going to help. but we are not going to be responsible for syria for all time. because if we are, as you say, and you have to put in ground troops and you have to deploy peace-keepers and spend billions of dollars. if that's the logic, we will never intervene in syria. >> chuck, i know we need to let you go you are a busy man. this is obviously a fluid situation. thank you as always for your time and thoughts. >> you got it. good panel you got. >> domy, i want to ask you, as a
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former nsc poobah, in terms of what was just discussed, the concept of the president owning it. the white house has been hesitant to engage because if it all goes wrong, it's on the president's plate. >> i think we owned iraq and it's aftermath. we own afghanistan, we tried not to own libya and it turned into a leading from behind canard. we need to remember our history here. i think the reluctance to get involved is not political, it's not about the aftermath, it's show me an option. show me an option that's realistic and that will change the situation on the ground. when we talk about a no-fly zone. we're talking about a very significant military intervention. this is a serious missile defense system that they have. they have, i read somewhere 131 sam sites, two dozen radars, we're talking about a lot of ordinance getting dropped by the united states. we talk about a humanitarian corridor, you're talking about invading part of a country,
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carving it off, defending that space from syrian forces. so these are very significant things that we all need to understand what they mean. and at the end of the day, i think when you think about iraq and you think about 150,000 troops in iraq. they couldn't prevent a sectarian war. which a lot of people think syria has become. we have 70% or so sunnis, you have about 30%, alawites, drews and christians this is a zero-sum gain where if they lose power they'll be slaughtered. these are the unbelievably complex set of circumstances they have to sort through. it's not a cbs/"new york times" poll. it's what could we do that would be truly effective. >> jamie, in terms of this, what's happening now, being sort of as erepeat history, "wall street journal" article earlier last year, in the face of the syrian dilemma that's been going on for a while, obama would be wise to consider the way bill clinton dealt with a crisis of kosovo in 199 9. the air campaign lasted 11
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weeks, included more than 30,000 sortees, cripple emilosevic's ability to wage war on civilians. do you think that's something he should consider? >> absolutely. what chuck was getting at is this idea that it's either all or nothing that we either have to stay away from this and not get sucked in. or else we own the problem. the united states didn't own the problem in kosovo. we don't have to own the problem in syria. what we have to do is decide that it matters, what happens in syria. we have to decide that it has national security consequences. you know these millions of refugees who are going to hate the united states for the rest of their lives? >> and that's the anne marie slaughter piece. >> they're going to be a danger. we're talking about a few chechens who left chechnya did all of this damage in boston. we're going to have millions of angry syrians who felt the united states, with minimal risk and minimal cost, an air
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campaign is a minimal cost compared to iraq. nobody is proposing 150,000 troops, it's not even worth mentioning as an example, because nobody is proposing it. what people could have done for the last year and a half is study the option of standoff air campaigns. what message would that have sent to the syrian regime? what people could have done was stand off training of the syrian rebels. there's lots of things that the military has been able to study for a year and a half. if the president had ordered them to come up with limited military options, with limited political goals, a year and a half ago, by now i'm sure they could have analyzed all of these complexities that you have discussed. >> to the refugee crisis, tommy. there were 16,000 syrian refugees registered in turkey. 7,000 in jordan. and 12,000 in lebanon a year ago. this year, those figures are now estimated to be 400,000 refugees in turkey, 470,000 in jordan,
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and a million in lebanon. to that crisis, in terms of regional stability, in terms of the sort of -- >> american official said this is the worst humanitarian crisis since world war ii. >> the human cost of this war weighs on this white house every single day. chemical weapons aside. i can tell you i've been in these meetings, and it's horrific. the issue is what bashar al assad is doing to his people and the fact that the russians and chinese won't let anything meaningful happen at the u.n. and the military options are bad and worse. the president has a set of horribly difficult decisions before him and we all care deeply about the costs to these people but he's got to make decisions based on u.s. national interests and he's trying to do so. >> two things we know, secretary of state kerry is going to meet with the russians. and i'm sure no small part of that discussion will be precisely this and what to do. but to the notion that we have not sort of looked at this through the lens of american security and american interests, i think you're right, jamie.
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if you look at the polls, the american public doesn't understand why it's important for to us get involved in syria. >> that's why the president has to lead. obviously it's not going to be politically a good thing to do to get in another war, obviously, the question is whether it's the right thing to do. >> well -- not whether it's popular. >> and it's in our national security interests, when everyone is saying that iran is going to have a nuclear weapon in x number of times, should we tie ourselves down in syria. >> we don't follow through in syria, where we say if you cross this red line we're going it use force, the iranians are going to conclude that we're not serious. if we care about iran we better do something about syria. >> jamie reuben thank you for joining us. the president today renewed his campaign promise to close guantanamo bay where an estimated 1 00 prisoners, well over half the population remain on hunger strike. >> i don't want these individuals to die. obviously the pentagon is, is
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trying to manage the situation as best as they can. but i think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this. >> he then addressed the sequester and whether congress will ever, ever start paying attention to long-term goals. we'll discuss all of that next on "now." both tylenol and bayer back & body are proven to be effective pain relievers tylenol works by blocking pain signals to your brain bayer back & body's dual action formula includes aspirin, which blocks pain at the site. try the power of bayer back & body. challenge that with olay facial hair removal duos for fine or coarse hair. first a pre-treatment balm then the effective cream. for gentle hair removal at far less than salon prices.
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does the president have anything left in the tank to push forward on his agenda. >> on the gun bill you put everything into it to try to get it passed.
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obviously it didn't. congress has ignored your efforts to try to get them to undo these sequester cuts. there's even a bill that you threatened to veto that got 92 democrats in the house voting yes. my question to you is -- do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this congress? >> if you put it that way, jonathan, maybe i should just pack up and go home. golly. jonathan, you seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. that's their job. >> the president also lass soha some thoughts for those dismissing the impact of the sequester cuts. next on "now." ♪ if loving you is wrong ♪ i don't wanna be right [ record scratch ]
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president obama had a clear message for any lawmakers still unsure about the impact of the sequester. >> it slowed our growth, it's resulting in people being thrown out of work. and it's hurting folks all across the country. >> the president also took the opportunity to remind everyone of the gop's change of heart in the last few months. from doomsday prophets to self-proclaimed victors. >> even as recently as my campaign, republicans were saying, sequester is terrible, this is a disaster, it will ruin our military, it will be disastrous for the economy. we've got to do something about it. then when it was determined that doing something about it might mean that we close some tax loopholes for the wealthy and the well connected. suddenly, you know what, we'll take the sequester. >> the president then accused lawmakers of sacrificing the country's long-term infrastructure for short-term gain after they voted to spare themselves from the pain created
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by the faa furloughs just in time for this week's recess. >> the fact that congress responded to the short-term problem of flight delays by giving us the option of shifting money that's designed to repair and improve airports over the long-term, to fix the short-term problem, well that's not a solution. the alternative of course, is either to go ahead and impose a whole bunch of delays on passengers now, which also does not fix the problem, or the third alternative is to actually fix the problem by coming up with a broader, larger deal. >> the faa carve-out came while other, harsher cuts remained in place for those with less political clout. there was no similar rush to protect the $4.6 long-term unemployed. many of whom have already started to see their checks reduced by as much as 10.7%.
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nor was there an exemption for the 70,000 children kicked off head start or the 1.2 disadvantaged students who will be further disadvantaged students by the elimination of title i educational funding. 600,000 women and children will no longer benefit from the government's special supplemental nutrition program. no relief for low-income seniors who will see four million fewer meals on wheels dinner or the 425,000 families at risk of losing their homes due to a cut in low-income housing assistance. have's and have not's divide from no less a figurer than george will. not america's typical champion for the downtrodden. >> a showdown like this, the articulate, the well organized, the affluent, the complaining middle class benefits of course. big government is always the servant of the strong enough to organize and make its levers work. the two million people who fly every day are disproportionately
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middle class and upper middle class. they know how to complain, organize and contact their congressman. >> the sequester and the reason the faa fix wouldn't be so galling if it weren't for the fact that the budget is about choices, at the same time we pull the rug out of the feet of the least affluent, nothing is being asked of the moneyed interests, who always somehow seem to end up getting their way. managing editor of the grio.com, joy reid. good to see you. george will, champion -- >> who would have thunk. >> but that's what's happening. >> he's right and that's the problem with the sequester, the idea is it was supposed to share the pain among everyone. but it turns out that congress does work when they're saving the affluent, the rich and the people who as george will said are able to complain and make their voices heard. the those with the lobbyists on the hill. when you travel through the airport, you see all the
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well-heeled travelers going through the express lane moaning about the delays. the they're fine with sequester hitting the low-income people because that's not their agenda. and the president can't just bring them to heel by taking them out to lunch. >> ben there is some analysis out now that the democrats have really not played this one particularly well and the president hasn't played it particularly well. if you sort of look at the precedent that the faa furloughs and the unwinding of those, what that substantively means is it might open the flood gate to other special interests and lobbyists, nancy coke writes on saturday, with two sequester tweaks on the book, other special interest groups, unions and lobbyists are planning to rev up their efforts to cut the sequester bit by bit, plotsing new ways to cast their particular sequester cuts as dire or safety hazards, as they seem open to escaping the full
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face of the legislation. >> i feel like we're looking through the political looking glass. the republicans are ig forring the results of the election, ignoring public opinion. one of the biggest pledges the president made during the re-election campaign. if you elect me we're going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way and make adjustments that strengthen the middle class. the president comes back to washington and congress says, no thanks. they're putting themselves in a position of political peril for 2014. you see the democratic campaign committees now gearing up their message. it's about competence. the ability to govern, the ability to come to the table and reach a deal. which is what members of congress were elected to do. and i think you're going to start to see the pressure build as you see an outcry across the country from those who have been laid off. from those military communities who are taking a big hit and when people recognize that what's holding back economic growth right now is those obstructionist republicans who are ignoring the results of the election. >> ben in fairness, this was passed by bipartisan support.
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why couldn't president obama have gotten more of a coalition of his own folks say we're standing in solidarity for people getting cuts to meals on wheels, low-income housing assistance. we're going to stand with them because we stand what sacrifice means. >> i think ultimately the democrats in congress, particularly leader reid worked to solve the entire problem at once. it's clear that the republicans weren't going to budge on that. if we can take a piecemeal approach to repealing the sequester, you see the president trying to pick off what he's calling the commonsense caucus of republicans who will work with him. who will negotiate on revenue. if he comes to the table on entitlement reform so there's still an opportunity for a larger package here. the president is individually working republican members of congress to get that done. but to leave this in place, i think would have been a mistake when it's clear that republicans are not yet in a position to repeal the entire package. >> isn't it all about pain? i mean it's all, we talk a lot about who can withstand the
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short-term pain for the long-term goal. >> you see withstanding, i think the issue here is the america that re-elected president obama lat fall, the the is not the america that elected a republican house last year and not the america who elected most of the republicans who are in the senate. it's sort of the merger of we have divided government. which is not unprecedented. but we have divided government in an era where there's partisan polarization. two party coalitions that are more separated than i think we've ever seen before. so like joy says, if you have in the issue of the sequester, the decoupling taking place where the faa cuts that start touching republican constituencies, you heard noise then and you saw a response from republicans. if you take that out of the equation, you're basically talking about cuts that are affecting people who are not part of the america that elected a republican house last year. >> so are you at all bullish on a deal? i mean been seems to suggest that -- >> there's certainly an opening
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for it. >> i think, the basic problem i've seen, in 2011, 2012 and even after 2012 with obama re-elected is where is the incentive, where's the political incentive where republicans are going to see it's in our interest to act. there's a national incentive. mitt romney lost the white house, but every individual member of the house most of the republican incumbents are from safe republican districts and they are much more worried about appealing to republican america, and being safe from a republican primary challenge than they are to appealing to broadly national american that re-elected obama. so there has to be an incentive that makes the average member of the house care about his or her own seat. >> addressing these topics was smoesed to be their top priority and the fact that he they won't even come to the table for negotiations completely defeats the purpose that they ran for office. >> i sort of stipulated the tea party to me is a sort of response to obama.
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was it really ever about the deficit. >> with regard to the sequester, if anybody is going to get political capital from it, it's unclear. because the sequester cuts are so discrete, they're not sort of -- with the exception of the faa furloughs, they're felt in certain districts and not others, if you look at the polling, there's a pew poll that says who is to blame for flight delays? 34% say congressional republicans, 32% say the obama administration, 10% says both. it's split down the line. so whether you get leverage in or out of this remains unclear to me. >> if the president got a bill that was bipartisan to fix the faa thing and he voted or was against it and everyone who rides a plane has their captain barking into the overhead that we're delayed because of obama's sequester or some you know, executive at a network in new york is pissed that his flight was delayed, this is a ridiculous side show issue that they had to come together and
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fix. but some journalists like you guys and sam stein and others are covering the head start. you know, some of these real cuts to low income people that are hugely important. and you're right, i mean the voices are getting drowned out. >> what's also interesting, the the "huffington post" reporting that we are in terms of tax evasion, we are cutting the funds to the irs that would prosecute tax evasion. that makes no sense. >> the sequester is actually going to increase the deficit. that is the ultimate irony of this whole mess of a process. >> carl levin and tom coburn estimate the government loses $100 billion a year from offshore tax evasion. but we're cutting the bureau that deals with tax evasion. >> the sequester is really all about -- it's about the rich being able to be exempted from the social safety net. that's what the tea party wing of the republican party is all about, about austerity, but only for the poor. >> the sequester is a stupid name and stupid in practice, that's what i'll say before we go to break. the appalachian trail gets rocky as mark sanford and elizabeth
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[ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident, allstate sends a check. silence. are you in good hands? elizabeth colbert bush delivered a south carolina smackdown to mark sanford. she took a walk down memory lane and by lane we mean the appalachian trail. >> when we talk about fiscal spending and talk about protectsing the taxpayers, it doesn't mean you take that money we saved and leave the country for a personal purpose. >> she went there, governor sanford. >> i couldn't hear what she said. >> mark sanford quite literally did not want to hear it. in the latest ppp poll,
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elizabeth colbert busch is leading by nine points with the election seven days away. for democrats this victory would seem to be more symbolic. the ability to win in a deep red district. the stakes are high anywhere massachusetts which holds a primary today for john kerry's senate seat. the special election will take place on june 25th and threatens the democrats 55-45 edge in the senate. right now congressman ed markey is the democratic ic front-runn. and overall, the two democratic candidates have raised nearly four times the amount of money as all three republicans. joining us now from columbia, south carolina, quietly rolling his eyes, as i talk over this former communications director for rick santorum, the infamous hogan gibly, hogan, it is a pleasure to see you again old friend. >> great to be back, alex. >> let's talk about elizabeth
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colbert busch and mark sanford. you were rolling your eyes as i delivered the term smackdown, it did seem like she won that one. did you think differently in south carolina? >> i did. i don't think she would it i think it was a draw. let's talk style. you can't necessarily win an election by one debate. you can sure lose one. she did fine. i thought she delivered lines fairly well, she was a little bit clunky. it was obvious she wasn't as well rehearsed as mark sanford, but he's been a governor and a congressman. he should have won and he should have won much more decisively. i don't think he did that i don't think he made any major missteps, either. the fact of the matter is she missed huge opportunities to take apart mark sanford's professional record. forget his personal one. we consistently lost jobs under mark sanford. not to mention the fact that our port that was second in the world when he took over, i think fell to 12th under his leadership because he refused to do anything about dredging down there. not to mention he was a road
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block for boeing. so there was some issue she's really could have tackle and hit him with that made him appear a whole lot more problematic as he was governor, no the to mention if he gets elected again. she did do a good job pointing out, i think, the clip that you just played. it's all about creating moments in debates. we know that she had a pretty good moment. there was a little bit clunky delivered. but i think she did a good job exposing the fact he is talk about the record he is a taxpayer hero. but at the end of the day, he used taxpayer dollars to see his mistress, that's a huge problem for him in south carolina. >> taxpayer dollar does see your mistress. hogan, the national republican party has sort of pulled its support fiscally speaking from sanford's campaign. but he's going to be campaigning with mickey haley and rand paul endorsed mark sanford today. how much does that change the game for him on the ground? how important are those endorsements? >> i think it was very important for the grass tops. i don't know how important it was for the grassroots. mark sanford is always trying to
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position himself as the underdog. can he look to washington again and say see, washington hates me so much. i'm such a fiscal hawk, even the nrcc doesn't want me to win because i'll stymie their spending as well. he used that to martyr himself to make him appear more on the tax issue. but the people at the local level, they don't care who the nrcc is, some of the power brokers in the state thought that was a big deal. i think the polls are starting to tighten a little bit. but at the end of the day, i think she could win by a point or two. from everything i'm hearing and every poll i read in the last couple of days, the cross tabs show it. i think if the minorities turn out at all, he loses this election. >> i want to open the panel up to our folks in new york. two races we're watching, one is in massachusetts. and as hogan mentioned, he talked about turn-out as we sort of ended that conversation. but turn-out seems to be an issue in massachusetts. we're expecting very low turn-out.
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what does that mean in terms of the contours of the race? >> i think it's a little more clear-cut on the democratic side. the story of the democratic politics in massachusetts. the older white ethnic socially conservative wing. ed king and michael dukakis, they had epic primary battles. now the candidate who kind of represents that wing is steve lynch. this iron worker from south boston. was in the state senate there, was in congress for ten years, he's by far the most conservative member of the massachusetts house delegation. he's probably going to lose today. i'd be surprised if he won. on the republican side, much more fluid, only 13% of the electorate in massachusetts is republican. unenrolled voters can take the republican or democratic ballot up there. basically you have an issue where the front-runners are gabriel gomez who on paper is a very attractive candidate. >> former navy s.e.a.l., businessman in private equity and finished the boston marathon
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moments before the bombing. >> private equity. his resumé looks a lot more like mitt romney than it does scott brown. >> but the issue, the reason why he's a more attractive candidate than michael sullivan. michael sullivan is the other plausible nominee on the republican side, the former attorney general for massachusetts. his position is i will not challenge the legitimacy of gay marriage. he's by far the most culturally conservative candidate running in the race. the democratic party in massachusetts has made an aggressive toward make him the nominee. if the turn-out is low on the republican side, presumably that's more activists who are turning out, michael sullivan is the favorite of the activist. gabriel gomez is the guy who spent money. the higher the turn-out gets, more in gomez's. >> if it's goem ez/markey -- >> here's the thing, chances are the race never gets that much atense. markey, that's most likely. if this thing ever captures public interest, public imagination or the way that coakley brown caught a few years
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ago, a 36-year house incumbent who has the house in malden he hasn't lived in in years, a real house in the beltway. reeks of d.c. insider. going up against a guy with gabriel gomes's story and background -- i can see that get agriculturally complicated. >> let's not oversell gomes as a regular guy here. he was a spokesman for the organization that tried to swift boat the president during his re-election campaign in massachusetts. where mitt romney went down by like 20 or 30 points so let's not portray him as an average guy. >> i'm not. i'm just saying he's on paper there's a lot about him that's marketable and on him there's a lot about -- i don't think a 36-year house incumbent has ever gone into the senate directly. i think that would be a record? >> can we quickly note that when mo cowan cedes the seat we'll go back to only one african-american in the senate. throw that in there.
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deval patrick, i wish he would return, that's pathetic. >> one of the things that struck me about elizabeth colbert busch, she was tough. she was unapologetic about supporting marriage equality, being pro choice and supporting background checks. that seemed to me to be a bit of a sea change in terms of south carolina politics. >> look, i don't know necessarily that that's representative or means much in the way of a changing demographic here in south carolina. i just think this has to do with mark sanford, quite frankly. but look, colbert busch hit on something we saw in the polling in the presidential, working across the aisle on all the dials ticked off. everyone wants to see that the problem with someone like sanford is he couldn't even work within his own party. hugely republican legislature, 400, 300 vetoes overridden in minutes. he has a problem with that type of language. he can't talk to that. she did a pretty good job talking about working across the aisle. >> you know what's working across the aisle, you on this
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program. i'm just comedic pause, hogan gibly, thank you as always for your time, we'll see you soon. >> thanks. coming up she was the swing vote on bush v. gore, but now sandra day o'connor is rethinking whether the supreme court should have even taken up the case at all. the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% annual bonus. and everyone but her... no. no! no. ...likes 50% more cash. but i don't give up easy... do you want 50% more cash? yes! yes?! ♪ [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on every purchase, plus a 50% annual bonus on the cash you earn. it's the card for people who like more cash. ♪ what's in your wallet? why? and we've hit the why phase... as well as they could because they don't take it with food.
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last week it was former presidents glazing over the legacy of george w. bush at the
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opening of his presidential library. more than 12 years after the supreme court ruled on bush v. gore, former supreme court justice, sandra day o'connor said it was probably a mistake for the supreme court to hear the case. of the court's decision, o'connor told the "chicago tribune" on friday, it took the case and decided it when it was still a big election issue. maybe the court should have said, we're not going to take it, good-bye. the case she said stirred up the public and gave the court a less than perfect reputation. ben, woulda, coulda, shoulda. >> this is when there was a precipitous decline in public bn about the court. it's entertaining to hear republican senators go after activist judges, there's no better example than this. and it's something that chief justice roberts tried to deal with after citizens uthed he saw opinion about the court erode again. that might be one of the reasons why he weighed in the way he did
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on health care. >> joy, think progress writing if nothing else, bush v. gore demonstrates how justices determined to reach a certain result are capable of bending both the law and their own prior jurisprudence in order to approve it. >> this came across as five republicans who wanted to insure there was a republican in the white house. it stained the court. >> it gets the president in the rutherford hayes problem. ruther-fraud hayes, he was placed in in a similar deal that got the troops out of the south. there are deals that are made that get presidents in the white house, but they're never pretty. >> that's the show for today, thanks to my panel, "andrea mitchell reports" is coming up next. the usual, bob? not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib: atrial fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem, a condition that puts him at greater risk for a stroke.
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weapons. >> what we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. we don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. as the president's top intelligence adviser launches a review of what happened before boston, the president defends the fbi and answers lindsay graham. >> no, mr. graham is not right. on this issue. although i'm sure generated some headlines. i think that what we saw in boston was state, local, federal officials, every agency rallying around a city that had been attacked. identifying the perpetrators